Petrochemical products such as oil and gas are ubiquitous in society and can be found in everything from gasoline to children's toys. Because of this, the demand for oil and gas remains high. In order to meet this high demand, it is important to locate oil and gas reserves in the Earth. Scientists and engineers conduct “surveys” utilizing, among other things, seismic and other wave exploration techniques to find oil and gas reservoirs within the Earth. These seismic exploration techniques often include controlling the emission of seismic energy into the Earth with a seismic source of energy (e.g., dynamite, air guns, vibrators, etc.), and monitoring the Earth's response to the seismic source with one or more receivers (which may each include one or more transducers used as sensors, for example, an accelerometer, a hydrophone, etc.). By observing the reflected seismic signals detected by the receiver during the survey, the geophysical data pertaining to reflected signals may be acquired and these signals may be used to form an image indicating the composition of the Earth near the survey location.
Conventional receivers may include one or more transducers used as accelerometers to measure vibrations, particle motion, acceleration, and so forth. For example, a 3-dimensional receiver may include three orthogonally oriented transducers. Each transducer may be, for example, a microelectromechanical (MEMS) capacitive accelerometer. MEMS capacitive accelerometers can be complicated and expensive to manufacture due to the silicon fabrication and processing techniques used, as well as the complex packaging required to hermetically seal the MEMS components. Also delicate electrical connections may need to be made to the MEMS components, which can be difficult and not always successful. Further, most MEMS capacitive accelerometers have a relatively small mass, which may be disadvantageous for applications where a relatively high sensitivity, low noise transducer is needed. Accordingly, relatively high sensitivity, low noise transducers that are inexpensive and relative easy to manufacture are needed.